


there is only wanting this to last, and the unbearable lasting, before it passes

by Victoryindeath2



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Brother Feels, Family, Feanor loves his sons but he is also Feanor, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Maedhros is like the equivalent of 17 or 18 I guess and take it down from there, Maedhros is the best big brother, Maglor thinks everybody should love music like he does, Maglor tries to be a good brother, i wrote this instead of updating my other fic, summary quote from a poem by Richard Siken, thank TolkienGirl, the angst is fluffy or the fluff is angsty idk, this fic features hair-braiding and chess, title from a poem by LeighAnna Schesser, what are their ages? who knows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 08:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18139547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Victoryindeath2/pseuds/Victoryindeath2
Summary: “You are but love streaming out the wrong way.”Maitimo will be a better king than anyone.





	there is only wanting this to last, and the unbearable lasting, before it passes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TolkienGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/gifts), [Mythopoeia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythopoeia/gifts).



“You are but love streaming out the wrong way.” Maitimo sits cross-legged in the Laurelin-light-soaked grass of Amil’s rambling, long-abandoned garden and leans back, presses his shoulders against his younger brother’s knees. Though he breathes steadily enough, he looks as though he has ridden the seven winds on Manwe’s eagles, and just tumbled off.

In reality, he has only recently escaped the furious clutches of young Atarinkë, who deemed it an unpardonable offense that Maitimo would postpone a rock-hunting expedition in order to quell a storm between Makalaurë and Carnistir.

Maitimo bears a long red scratch down his neck, and Makalaurë should make him go to Amil, or clean his brother’s wound himself, or descend into Atar’s forge and complain about Atarinkë’s treatment of Maitimo, since Maitimo will never do that himself. But Makalaurë is young, and he prefers to follow rather than to lead, and his brother has led him to Amil’s garden.

They sit in silence, and there is only the fluttering of leaves, and the peculiar cry of the peacock that Atar gave to Amil for some eccentric reason. The colorful bird currently sits atop the vine-choked garden shed just across the path to their left. Manwë knows how it got there—Makalaurë  has never seen the bird fly, doesn’t know if it can. The thing is useless, not unlike himself, it seems.

“I don’t know why he was so rude,” Makalaurë says, between clenched teeth. “I stayed up two nights in a row, hiding in a closet with a stolen candle, just to compose that song for him.” He shifts on his wooden bench and blinks fiercely.

Without looking, Maitimo pats the top of one of Makalaurë’s boots, and Makalaurë resists the urge to kick him.

“Carnistir does not appreciate music the way you do,” Maitimo murmurs, “nor how you wind your spirit around every note. Perhaps it isn’t fair to expect him to value a song as a particularly wonderful gift. Not when you had sworn to find him a ruby-hilted knife to match Tyelkormo’s.”

Maitimo’s eyes are closed, and he cannot possibly know how desperate Makalaurë is, how greatly offended, how deeply hurt.

This is what Makalaurë thinks, for half a second, before better knowledge of his brother forces his bitterness to relent.

Maitimo always understands, and he always knows what to say—or not to say. Makalaurë tends to sulk, and Maitimo never lets him.

Káno,” Maitimo says affectionately, blindly searching for Makalaurë’s hand. He finds it and lays it on top of his own head. “You and I both know that though your song were filled with power to raise a third tree between Laurelin and Telperion, Carnistir would still have threatened to cut every string of your harp. That’s the consequence of making promises you can’t keep.”

Makalaurë’s hands shake as he pulls his fingers through his brother’s wild, tangled hair. He can see nothing but the dazzle of copper, brilliant like Atar’s gaze, fierce, but comforting in ways Atar could never be.

Maitimo is a much wiser elf than Makalaurë is, was, will be. He never loses himself to passion, never overlooks the daily, hourly tribulations of his younger brothers, never fails to calm them, or to support them—or to restrain them when they are aggrieved idiots.

He deserves much praise, and yet receives little from where he looks for it most.

(Makalaurë knows this, yet still allows himself to be insufferable whenever Atar praises his music, asks for a song again)

Maitimo does not flinch when Makalaurë snags a thumb in a snarl of fire. He merely leans into his brother more, and Makalaurë begins to breathe evenly at last.

The braids he weaves today are those of a king.

Maitimo will be a better king than anyone.

 

In the evening, Atar crushes Maitimo in chess again.

_This is more than a game, Nelyo, a king must know his enemy’s strategy better than his own, you cannot sacrifice your queen and hope a lowly pawn will raise you to glory._

This is what Atar thinks, so loud and clear that Makalaurë can hear the particular inflection of his father’s speech, so pointedly different from that of Finwë’s other sons.

Maitimo would lean back into the shadows if only his high-backed chair would let him. It does not matter. Candles flicker, and the shadows find him anyway, and his hair darkens so that it seems as black as his father’s. Makalaurë sits by the white stone window, quill twitching in his hand, seething.

_Leave him alone, can’t you see he’d rather be doing anything else? Drawing with charcoal? Playing with Ambarussa? Riding wildly across starlit fields with Findekáno in his wake?_

This is what Makalaurë would say, except sometimes he is wiser than he believes. Maitimo would not thank him for such aid.

He sketches discordant notes on parchment paper, unseeing, desperate only to appear as if he is engrossed in composing.

If he could but leave his seat and leap out the window and land on the soft grass below...maybe he could get lost in midnight. Maybe he would find himself far from home, and brothers tiresome and tired alike.

Makalaurë steals a glance at his brother, and marvels at Maitimo’s composure. The tilted, attentive head, the steady blinking. The shoulders unhunched, the jaw unclenched. Maitimo is getting better at taking Atar’s criticisms, or perhaps he cares less.

No. Even before Makalaurë catches sight of Maitimo’s hands under the table, gripping his knees, he knows he is mistaken. Maitimo is incapable of apathy, and Atar cuts his heart-skin like no other.

Atar ceases his remonstrations, this time before he goes too far.

(what is too far, when a father loves his son, but expects great and greater things from him?)

Atar stands to leave, and what Maitimo needs is a brush of his father’s hand on his shoulder, to soothe away the sting of his words, but Atar will not do so. Physical affection does not come easily to him, and his older sons do not experience it as much anymore. Makalaurë does not mind, but Maitimo...

It would do Maitimo so much good.

_Do you think so?_

Makalaurë drops his quill, shocked to find his father standing over him, staring at him with a quizzical tilt to his lips.

He cannot see Maitimo behind Atar’s looming frame and flowing burgundy robes.

_I do._

Atar turns, and Makalaurë is young and Fëanáro son of Finwë is not yet a burning flame of sorrow and vengeance, not to be crossed or questioned or petitioned, so Makalaurë dares more still.

_Atarinkë needs to be put in check. He is young, but troubles Maitimo overmuch. It was he who marked Maitimo’s neck so._

Atar does not respond, but steps back toward the chess table, and Makalaurë turns fully in his chair, to see what his efforts have wrought, whether good or ill.

Maitimo looks up, and the puzzlement on his face is clear, his brows knit in confusion, and Atar says nothing aloud, thinks nothing Makalaurë can hear, but Maitimo’s right hand drifts up toward the scratch on his neck, and he shakes his head as though he would dislodge a fly crawling on his cheek.

“Nelyo,” Atar says, and his steel-strong hands reach out to Maitimo’s hair, and his fingers trace the braids Makalaurë twisted in not so many hours ago.

Makalaurë cannot count how many seconds Atar stands there, but when Atar is gone, leaving speechless sons behind, Maitimo lays his head down on the chess table, brushing kings and pawns aside.

Makalaurë finds himself walking over to his brother, moving candles further from Maitimo’s hair, so that it might not be singed or catch fire.

Maitimo has closed his eyes again, and Makalaurë cannot see their bright light, but he bites his lip when he sees tears slipping down his brother’s cheek, falling on the chessboard.

Makalaurë has no words for such times, and his harp is in his room on another floor, but his flute is in the leather bag next to the parchment he just ruined, and he takes it up.

He plays through the night, and Maitimo falls asleep, and maybe dreams of a future brighter then Laurelin.


End file.
